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Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Anyone attempting to lead change in an
organization knows to expect some resistance. Change is not a rational process;
no matter how positive the future you are creating, it’s natural for humans to
struggle with it.

Such resistance is no less frustrating for
being predictable. At times, it can seem that all that stands between you and
your goals are a few naysayers and whiners. And to those on a mission, such
reactions can seem like putting one’s head in the sand. “The old business is
not coming back,” one CEO told me. “We have to innovate or we will die.” Faced
with negative remarks, critical questions, or stony silence, change champions
naturally begin to interact more with those already on board, consciously or
unconsciously distancing themselves from those who “don’t get it.”

Gradually,
a wall begins to form between “us” and “them” — champions who
support the change, and resistors who openly or quietly oppose
it. Unfortunately, approaching change with an “us versus them” mind-set
actually increases pushback. When we think of people as resistors, we don’t
truly engage with them. We tend to discount their perspective, assuming that if
we are right, they must be wrong.

“In reality, each side is paying attention to
different things,” says Robert “Jake” Jacobs, an expert in polarity management
— a method for dealing with chronic issues in organizations and groups. Change
champions tend to pay attention to the upside of their future vision and the
downside of today’s status quo. For example, those who are passionate about
customers are hyper-focused on building relationships for the long term. To
them, resistors seem greedy or blind.

Conversely, resistors pay attention to the
downside of the change and the upside of the current state. They see the risks.
When change champions refuse to discuss an issue, resistors assume they are
hopelessly naive or sinister actors trying to pull the wool over everyone’s
eyes. To them, it can seem fiscally reckless to divert attention from the
financial aspects of the business to softer issues such as customer experience.
Which of them is right? “They both are,” says Jacobs. “But each is only
half-right.”

In the
worst-case scenario, “us versus them” thinking devolves into
factions that compete but never really engage.
According to Robert Fritz, author of The
Path of Least Resistance for Managers (Newfane
Press, 2011), the result is an oscillation between changes, rather than real
advancement. “Companies swing back and forth, from centralization to
decentralization, acquisition to divestiture, customer focus to shareholder
focus,” he explains. “It’s like a rocking chair: lots of movement, with very
little progress.”

The
solution is to reframe how we think about resistance. Rather than assuming
critical thinkers are resistors, we would do better to treat them as guardians.
Guardians see what needs to be protected, and the trust that can be destroyed
by a broken promise or a shortcut. Who else will ask the hard questions?
Guardians keep us honest in the face of self-delusion or blind spots. For
example, one executive I worked with learned that his frontline professionals
were convinced that new data he wanted to capture would be used in a punitive
way. He had no intention of doing so, and had dismissed their concerns as
ridiculous. But, in fact, he had provided no assurances to the contrary, and
such abuses had occurred in the past. From the employees’ point of view, he
later acknowledged, their questions were legitimate. Seeing this, he gave them
practical assurances — and backed them up over time through his actions.

When
you approach guardians as responsible, thinking adults (with imperfect
information and biases, just like you), you demonstrate genuine respect. You
gather input, not as a way to get them to buy in to the change, but because
they have important information you may be missing. Remember Stanley Tucci as
the risk management officer in the movie Margin Call? He isn’t
resisting the new direction out of spite; he knows the risks are too great.

Once
you have recognized your guardians, you can turn the wall between us and them
into a bridge. In the “getting
unstuck” process outlined by Jacobs, you start by
asking about the upsides of the current reality. What is important? What
strengths should be protected? What have we promised? Get specific, ask for the
history. Next, ask about the downsides of the change. What could go wrong? One
manager I spoke with worried that outsourcing would hamstring his company — and
he had good data to support his concerns. In another company, I heard people
joking about the company’s new values initiative. Their worry? That the effort would
become fake. Bringing these risks to the surface helped the first company avoid
a bad decision, and the second to avoid “commitment drift.”

Let’s be clear: You aren’t asking for
permission to change. You still need to make tough calls and stand for your
values. You will have real differences to work out. But engaging your guardians
with respect gives you greater intelligence, keeps you honest in the face of
dysfunctional momentum, and highlights where safeguards are needed. Having
acknowledged others’ valid points and planned to handle the biggest risks, you
can add your perspective, highlighting what needs to change in the current
situation and the possibilities for the future. Throughout this process, you
will learn about misconceptions and assumptions to clear up in your
communications.

For their part, guardians can do a better job
of clarifying what they are protecting, and articulating it in a constructive
way: Don’t just assume change champions see the risks and don’t care. Then,
together, you can decide how to approach the future you want. According to
Fritz, “We shift from the oscillating pattern into an advancing pattern when we
focus on a shared purpose that builds on the things that work now.” For
example, one plant manager told me he discovered his employees were resisting
added safety precautions because the procedures made it hard to respond quickly
to customers. Rather than overriding or dismissing them, he used the tension as
a focus for innovation, asking his teams, “How might we increase safety and
reliability without sacrificing customer responsiveness?” This is the kind of
leadership needed to create a successful organization for the long term.